Dear Anwar.

Do you believe giving a few of your questions on researchgate.net here might help colleagues suggest solutions to your question about the nature of the "interview questions" you might use?.

Dennis

Dennis Mazur

The reviewer is suggesting what would be known in mixed methods as a "sequential explanatory" design or QUANT --> qual. This design is most common. when you have unexpected results, so that you can pursue how and why the occurred.

When your results actually do match your original hypotheses, it is also useful for demonstrating that the underlying reasons for participants' responses are indeed in line with those hypotheses. This approach can helpful validate your model.

The first step in setting up the open-ended interviews is to draw a sample. If possible, you could recontact respondents from your original sample, but this can raise human subjects issues related to confidentiality. Alternatively, you can draw a new sample using the same specifications as you did before.

@Morgan thanks for answer.

Let say I have intellectual capital as Independent variable that is measured with " we have strong human skill" and dependent variable is firm performance.

So what should be asked owners and managers in in depth interview to increase the validity of the model.

Sincerely, Anwar

The first thing I would do is clarify whether your main hypothesis is about a simple direct effect such as this, or whether it is about mediation. In other words, your interview should be structured around whatever are the most important issues that you want to address.

In the case you mention, I would start by asking what organizational performance meant to them in their organization, and I would follow that by asking about the factors inside the organization that had the most important effects on organizational performance (presumably you want to exclude environmental and external factors unless those were in your original model).

Starting with these broad factors allows you hear about whether they mention they mention things related to intellectual capital before you "cue" them by asking about this topic. In other words, you hear the participants' perspective before you introduce your own researcher-driven agenda.

Once you have heard about the participants' way of thinking, you can introduce narrower questions that concentrate on your own agenda. This is the point where you would ask about intellectual capital and its role in organizational performance.

If they have already discussed things related to intellectual capital, you can say something like, "One topic you've already mentioned is something that academic researchers like to call intellectual capital. Can you tell me what kinds of things you think of when you here the term intellectual capital." After that, you could ask to hear more about how their concept of intellectual capital relates to organizational performance.

Alternatively, if their early explanations do not mention things related to your conception of intellectual capital, you could say something like, "One area we haven't gotten into yet is what academic researchers like to call..." and so on as above.

At the end of the interview, you need a "wrap-up" question to bring the interview to a close. Something like, "I'd like you to think back over everything you've discussed today and tell me one thing that I should be certain to pay attention to with regard to intellectual capital in your organization. What would that be?"

Everything I've suggested here is in response to your specific request for questions on your topic. For more general advice about how to conduct open-ended interviews, I would recommend the book by Rubin and Rubin, Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data from Sage.

I should add that what I suggested is not the only way to investigate your topic, it is just my own way so addressing such issues.

So I hope you get additional ideas from others.